In "Death and Justice: How Capital Punishment Affirms Life", readers view the opinions toward the death penalty in today's world. Koch reviews a variety of excuses to abolish the death penalty, and in his mind all of them should be disregarded. He argues the importance of the death penalty, as well as, argues excuses of the death penalty opponents. He argues the ethics and politics towards the importance and support of the death penalty. He tries to appeal to the readers’ emotion whenever he can.
Wright demonstrated the use of this method at the end of his/her letter, as a way to conclude the argument. The choice given to the reader is, “…either we demand the death penalty for convicted murderers or we’ll never feel safe in our homes and on our streets. No one wants to live in fear, so it’s obvious that we need to bring back the death penalty!” By just presenting these two conclusions to the reader, it only allows them to imagine the two extreme possibilities. It is clear that there are more possibilities regarding the situation that the author is presenting – for example, criminals are kept in prison to allow people to feel safe in their homes, the death penalty is not the only option –; however, by him/her only pointing out those two outcomes it makes the reader more alarmed and willing to side with the authors
Koch’s intellectual strategy works on the emotional, rational and logical aspects of human thinking and deduction. For example, he brilliantly disables the alignment and compassion one might hear in a convicted murderer’s pleading words as he faces execution, “killing is wrong…. It was wrong when I did it and it is wrong when you do it”. (para 1) For some people this quote from a convicted murderer seems to compel a sense of
An article published by the A-level law review, written by Ian Yule and entitled ‘Murder most foul?’ has two very important statements in the opening paragraph from people or groups who have first-hand knowledge of what is failing the British legal system when it comes to the decisions regarding cases of murder and voluntary manslaughter. Ken Macdonald QC, the director of public prosecutions, stated that ‘There should be degrees of homicide, not just murder and manslaughter but three or four degrees’. It is evident that our existing homicide laws are in urgent need of reform when even the Director of public prosecutions criticises them. The second is from the Law Commission itself in 2004 published a report relating to the partial defences for murder declaring ‘the present law of murder in England and Wales is a mess’ and also in the same report the Law Commission said that there was ‘a pressing need for a review of the whole law of murder rather than merely some partial defences’. The current law serves to confirm and underline how seriously flawed the present law on homicide is.
He concludes by saying anesthesia needs to be abolished, and in order to kill a person we, as a people will find a constitutional way to kill them. The article that Blecker wrote supports his view of executing the death penalty more often and without hesitation. In the beginning, there is an ethical appeal since he is professional in this field, his degree and status is shared to help support his argument to the audience. The audience understands that the author knows what he is talking about and all his arguments have a valid point. He starts by ridiculing his opponents on the death penalty by stating, “Let the
Rhetorical Analysis of The Penalty of Death Capital punishment is defined as the killing of a person by judicial process and punishment. In the McGraw-Hill Reader on pages one hundred and forty-five to page one hundred and forty-seven Henry Louis Mencken argues capital punishment. This article titled “Penalty of Death” was first published in Prejudices: Fifth Series in 1926. The article begins as being for capital punishment, but Mencken turns it around and defends capital punishment in his own unique way. Mencken, just like I do, believes that capital punishment is good in every way, and he can argue his points with great detail.
The Homicide Act 1957 has been criticised mainly under these following premises. The Mandatory life sentence for committing murder has been criticised for being too rigid in the cases of mercy killing, for example, a man may have helped to kill his terminally ill wife because she begged him to put an end to her pain. The court may feel considerable sympathy for the husband who carried out the act of a mercy killing, but would still be obliged to impose a life sentence. The mandatory life sentence for murder means that once convicted of the offence, the defendants face the same penalty whether they are serial killers, terrorists or mercy killers. This inflexibility prevents the court from taking into account motive or circumstances, both of which can make a significant difference to the way in which society would view the individual offence.
Interviews of retired employees to study the effects of capital punishment were taken and analysed qualitatively. Political and religious orientations, perceptions in racism were key variables to study the changes in time; Prison services were also closely studied. The main topic of this study was to see how capital punishment dehumanises both the prison inmates and staff. Well established theories provided an analysis that culture is a very strong factor in making people agree or disagree with the use of capital punishment, regardless of their own beliefs. Findings concluded that those who held pro-death penalty positions were raised in religious traditions that taught capital punishment consistent with the Bible, while those who were anti-death penalty were raised in such traditions which did not support this notion.
This shows he cares more about what is right for the people then his own personal benefits. The authors used very strong language quoted by Del. Davis throughout the paper such as, “the death penalty is flawed, ineffective and racially biased. And if we can get enough people to understand that, then in a few years we can repeal the death penalty in the United States once and for all” (Jealous & Braveboy, p. 11). Those sentences speak a lot about how powerful words can affect us.
However as murder is the most serious crime many believe that it is correct that it follows a mandatory sentence as it gives the family and society a sense of justice is being done. In 2008 Maria Eagle the justice minister stated that ‘’ Murder is a unique crime of particular moral and social significance and the mandatory life sentence reflects society’s abhorrent of it.’’ Basically stating that the mandatory sentence helps reflect society’s disgust at what the defendant has